


don't fade away

by thatapostateboy



Series: When Your Back's Against The Wall [5]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Blood, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Not sure if I should tag this as extreme as Mature and graphic violence, Sibling Bonding, but small amount of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 06:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10530531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatapostateboy/pseuds/thatapostateboy
Summary: Gil and Scott attempt to take some alone time on the Tempest whilst the Pathfinder and her team are on Kadara, but things turn sour when Sam is fatally injured and Scott has to come to the reality that he might lose his twin forever.





	1. Don't Leave Me Now

One thing that Gil and Scott had come to realise over the few months of their relationship was that any free time they had was precious. They spent all day every day with each other, working in engineering, keeping the Tempest humming, coming up with ways they could improve her systems without upsetting Kallo, or getting way too deep into fantasies about what they could do with the Nomad with unlimited time and resources. Days, which by the end of, they would both be exhausted and falling into their separate bunks, sleep far more important than anything else. Even showering together wasn’t as romantic as Scott had pictured; the rest of their crew had no boundaries and everyone had become very comfortable with each other so privacy was hardly an option.

So when they docked up, and Sam was off somewhere saving the day, they took what downtime they could to spend together. They had planned various dates off ship, depending where they were, but whilst they were in Kadara with no desire to hang around the seedy bars, they would curl up in a bunk together and make out until someone interrupted them. Not that anyone cared. They normally made a joking comment, grabbed what they needed and left the pair to it.

That day was no different as their lips collided continuously, hungrily kissing each other, already half dressed and tugging on the few remaining items of clothing.

“We should lock the door,” Gil murmured.

“Anyone could override it,” Scott pointed out, “At this point, I don’t care who walks in.”

Gil smiled against his mouth, “Eager, are we?”

“I want you, right here, right now,” he moaned into the next kiss, pulling Gil closer, “ _Please_.”

“How could I say no to that?”

The sound of comms crackling and kicking in drew them both out of the moment, and Scott audibly groaned.

“Tempest, come in!” Cora’s voice yelled.

“We hear you Cora,” Scott said, “What’s going on?”

“The Pathfinder’s been shot!

Scott felt his blood run cold as he and Gil scrambled out of bed, yanking clothes on, “What? Is she okay?!”

“She wasn’t wearing her armour, someone got a clean shot at her… She’s bleeding heavily, get Lexi to prep the med bay, she needs immediate attention!” Cora replied.

“Lexi’s not aboard, she took a transport out to the outpost after you left!” Scott told her, rushing to engineering.

In the background of Cora’s feed they could hear Vetra’s voice, “C’mon Sam, stay with me, don’t do this to me, stay with me!”

“Someone needs to get Lexi, _now!”_ Cora hissed, “The Nomad is still parked outside the slums, someone’s gotta go after her.”

Liam was already running out the door, “I’ll go. Stay on the comms, we may need to do this over radio contact.”

It was moments later that the ground team came through the door, Cora first, followed by another figure that Scott didn’t recognise, but his focus turned to Vetra who was close behind them; Sam hanging limp in her arms.

“Sammy!” Scott yelled in alarm, racing towards his sister.

Vetra pushed past him and carried her into the med bay, laying her down on one of the beds as they all started to gather around to assess the damage. Sam’s grey hoody was covered in blood, and more was pouring out of a gun shot wound in her chest.

“What the fuck happened?” Scott demanded as various hands set to work, trying to find the supply of medi gel, applying pressure to the wound.

“She wanted to stop by Tartarus to check in with Reyes before we headed out. One of Sloane Kelly’s old cronies was there and took a shot. We put him down, but…” Cora looked at Sam.

“He was aiming at me and she jumped in the way.”

Scott spun around to see a figure he didn’t recognise stood in the doorway. A dark haired man, with eyes the colour of whiskey, and a demeanour about him that _screamed_ smuggler, who only could have been Reyes Vidal.

Scott saw red for a moment, and before he knew it, his fist was connecting with the side of Vidal’s face. Reyes stumbled, barely catching onto the doorframe to hold himself up, already feeling the sting of a split lip.

“If she dies because of you, I’ll finish the job myself,” Scott hissed.

“Scott!” Cora barked, “Not here, not now!”

He rounded on Reyes again, “Get off the ship!”

“I’m not going anywhere until I know she’s okay,” Reyes said, standing his ground.

“Does she look like she’s okay?!” he pointed to his sister who was bleeding out on the examining table, “This is your fault!”

“I didn’t ask her to take that bullet for me!”

“Enough!” Cora yelled, “Both of you, out! We are trying to save her life here and we can’t do that with you two shouting!” Reyes turned and headed towards engineering, and Scott presumed that he was leaving. He went to linger, but Cora shot him a look, “I said, out. We need space, and you need to calm down. You’re no good to Sam in this state.”

Gil stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. Scott tensed up at the sudden contact, but all of the fight went out of him as he looked into Gil’s eyes.

“C’mon,” he insisted quietly, “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

He let Gil lead him out of the med bay and back to the crew quarters. They sat together on Scott’s bunk in silence, listening to the faint clatter of Cora and Vetra working on Sam. He didn’t feel at all relieved when Liam finally caught up to Lexi and patched her in on the comms. She began to talk them through treatment; removing the bullet and closing the wound, but the thought of them doing that to his twin had sent Scott sprinting for the toilet to throw up into, so Gil had turned off the comms so that they were alone.

All had been quiet for a long time, and Gil took hold of his hand, “She’s going to pull through.” He didn’t know whether it was true, but it was the only reassuring thing that came to mind.

“What if she doesn’t?” Scott asked quietly.

“Scott-” Gil started to say, but Scott shot him a look.

“What if she doesn’t pull through? She’s all I’ve got left, Gil. She’s my best friend. She’s… She’s half of me, half of my soul, whatever. It sounds like some made up twin bullshit but it’s true. I can’t live without her. I can’t.”

Gil held tight to his hand, “She’s strong. And the most stubborn person I know. She’s going to make it through this… And if something happens, either now, or down the line; you won’t ever be alone. I promise you.”

Scott let out a sigh, resting his head against Gil’s shoulder, “I love you Gil.”

“Scott, you don’t have to-”

“I mean it,” he said, “I’ve wanted to say it for a while, I just wanted to wait for the right time, but there never is a right time. Something could happen to someone you love at any day. I’ve lost too many people where things have gone left unsaid. I wish I’d said a better goodbye to Mom, that I wasn’t busy wallowing in my own grief before she’d even gone to say things that I should have said. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my dad. I don’t know if I’ll get to say goodbye to Sammy. There is so much I regret not saying. So whilst I can, just let me say it. I love you, Gil Brodie... You don’t have to say it back. I don’t want you to feel pressured, or anything, I just really needed to-”

“Hey,” Gil whispered and tilted his head, pressing a kiss to Scott’s familiar smelling hair, “I love you too, Scott Ryder. And I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’d better keep that promise.”

“I will as long as you will.”

Scott interlaced their fingers, holding tight to him, “You go, I go.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. If you and I are both going, that probably means the ship is crashing,” Gil pointed out.

Scott smiled a little, “I won’t let anything happen to the ship.”


	2. Stay With Me, Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wakes up, but she doesn't feel quite as heroic as she'd intended.

Sam let out a groan as she opened her eyes to the dimmed lighting of the med bay. She tried to sit up, but a pair of strong hands were suddenly on her shoulders, easing her back into bed.

“You need to rest,” Vetra’s warm voice told her, “Doctor’s orders.”

She sunk back into the pillows, looking up at her, “What happened? We were in the bar and then… Kaetus was there. He was going to shoot Reyes. I…” she looked down at her bandaged up abdomen and gave a nod, “Ah shit… Is Reyes okay?”

Vetra’s mandibles flared a little in an expression that was the human equivalent of a raised eyebrow, “You get shot and you worry about him?”

“I’m clearly fine,” she pointed out, “Takes more than a turian with a quick shot to take me down. Is he okay?”

Vetra rolled her eyes, “Yeah he’s fine. Scott tried to break his jaw, but apart from that he was unscathed. Last I saw, he was pacing around engineering. Wouldn’t leave till he knew you were okay.”

She smiled a little at that, “He definitely owes me a drink after this.”

“Are you seriously joking at a time like this?” Vetra’s voice filled with concern, “You nearly _died_.”

“Me dying is nothing new. I’m practically a pro at it at this point.”

“That’s not funny. SAM couldn’t bring you back this time. You literally jumped in front of a bullet for someone. You made that decision… I thought I was going to lose you.”

Sam moved her hand to take hold of Vetra’s, letting out a sigh, “I’m sorry. Not for saving Reyes; he’s my friend, and you know I would do anything to protect the people I care about. But for putting you through that. I don’t know what I’d do if it was the other way around.”

“It’s what I get for falling in love with a damn hero,” Vetra offered her a soft smile.

Sam quirked an eyebrow, “So Scott punched Reyes?”

“Yep. As soon as Reyes admitted that the bullet was meant for him, Scott lost his shit. Hit him square in the jaw, probably would have hit him again if Cora hadn’t stopped him. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him angry,” the turian admitted.

“Scott doesn’t get angry. He’s the calmer one of the two of us. If Scott’s pissed, he means it,” Sam told her.

“Damn straight,” Scott’s voice came from the doorway.

Sam looked up with a smile when she saw her brother, “I thought you’d be asleep.”

“You really think I could sleep knowing you were in here?” he asked, “How’re you feeling?” he took a seat on the opposite side of the bed to Vetra, a concerned look in his eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, “And don’t bother with the ‘I can’t believe you jumped in front of a bullet’ speech, Vetra got there first.”

“I don’t care about that,” he frowned, “I never doubted for a second that this is some selfless shit that you’d pull one day. I care that it was him.”

She sighed, “He’s my friend, Scott.”

“He’s also the same guy that had Sloane Kelly taken out with a sniper during a duel. He’s a gang leader, a smuggler-”

“And not all that different than how we would have turned out if we’d stayed on the Citadel all our lives,” she pointed out.

He folded his arms with a huff, “That’s not the point.”

“That’s _exactly_ the point,” she said, “Do you know why I care so much about him? Why I trust him? Why I was willing to take a bullet for him? Because he reminds me of you, how you were when we were younger, how you could have been if things hadn’t changed.”

He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, before letting out a defeated sigh, “Just… don’t scare me like that again, okay Sammy?”

“Okay,” she said, “Now go get some sleep.”

He offered her a smile, for her sake rather than his own, “Okay _Mom_.”

He gave her hand a squeeze then left them to it, knowing that she’d rather spend her recovery with Vetra and not him. He sent out a message via the crew email letting them all know that Sam was going to be okay. A lot of them were still awake, the only ones sleeping were the ones that had passed out from sheer exhaustion. Upon hearing the news, everyone retired to their bunks, shutting the ship down for the night. They had planned to be out of Kadara by sundown, but wherever they were headed could wait for one night.


	3. Light Up The Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a restless night, Scott realises that Reyes never left. Bonding ensues.

Scott only got a few hours of rest, tossing and turning in his bunk, trying to get the image of his sister dying and covered in blood out of his head. What if they hadn’t been able to save her? What if they’d been too late or the shot had been two inches closer to her heart? He would have lost her forever.

Around dawn he rolled out of bed, knowing that forcing any more attempts at sleep was going to be fruitless. Maybe a jog around Kadara port before breakfast would clear his head. He stood, pulling his hoody on, smiling at Gil who was snoring softly on the bunk above. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“What time is it?” Gil mumbled without opening his eyes.

“Early,” Scott told him quietly, “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you when breakfast is ready.”

“Mmmkay,” he rolled into his pillow, falling instantly back to sleep. He could have watched him sleep forever, but decided against it. If their growing relationship and confessions of love were an indication of anything, it was that he was going to have plenty of opportunity to wake up next to this man and enjoy his soft sleeping expressions in the future.

As he made his way through the ship, he noted that pretty much everyone was still asleep apart from Cora who was up and working on breakfast, the warm smell of cooking wafting out from the galley. He even put his head around the door of the med bay to check on Sam to see that she and Vetra had curled up together on the bed, his sister safe in the turian’s arms. He smiled to himself, but decided not to wake them.

He headed into engineering, ready to head out through the hangar bay door but he stopped dead when he realised that he wasn’t alone. Reyes was perched on one of the crates, eyes closed where he had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

Scott’s eyebrows rose. He didn’t think that he would still be here, that he would have slunk back off to his hole of a bar. As he walked closer, Reyes woke with a start at the sound of footsteps. He looked up at Scott, clearly expecting more trouble.

“How’s Samantha?” he asked.

That surprised Scott more than anything else that could have come out of Reyes’ mouth. No one called Sam Samantha. She had always just been Sam, or Sammy. It had always been a joke between her and her brother that the AI their father created was named SAM. Scott used it to point out the fact that she was the favourite child, which never failed to rile her up. Their father had insisted that it was coincidence and the alliteration was too good to pass up, lest they come up with some new complicated name. So Alec had taken to calling his daughter Samantha to avoid confusion, which she hated. So, she went by Sam out of stubbornness more than anything, refusing to be called anything else. Scott was the only one that was allowed to call her Sammy.

“She’ll be okay,” Scott told him, “Feeling a little sore, but she’ll be absolutely fine.”

Reyes let out a sigh of relief, “Thank god… Can I see her?”

“You can, but first, you and I need to talk.” He came to sit beside him on the crate, “I… I’m sorry I hit you.”

Reyes’ eyes widened in surprise, “You’ve got nothing to apologise for. You were worried about your sister.”

“I was, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I blamed you, and it wasn’t your fault. But she’s going to be okay… So I just wanted to say… _sorry_.”

“Apology accepted,” Reyes said, nodding a little stiffly.

“I don’t get angry like that very often. I have a better temperament than my sister does.”

“I have noticed that she likes to yell a lot.”

Scott hummed, “She likes to pretend that she’s the quiet one, but the Italian heritage is strong in that one. She’s louder than she thinks she is, and you’ve got to watch out for her hands or you’re going to get an accidental slap in the face.”

“I’m glad she’s going to be okay,” Reyes said, “I care a lot about her.”

Scott gave a hard laugh, “Good luck with that one, bud.”

Reyes rolled his eyes, “Not in that way. She is a beautiful woman, yes, but we are better off as just friends. I might not be _her_ best friend, but she’s the closest that I’ve got to one. She didn’t hesitate to protect me from danger, it’s strange to have someone that cares that much in my life.”

“That’s Sammy, hero of Andromeda, saviour of all, even if they’re the smuggler King of Kadara.”

“So you know who I am?”

“Of course. My sister tells me everything.”

Reyes smiled, “She has a habit of doing that. She told me about what little criminals the pair of you used to be on the Citadel.”

Scott finally cracked a smile, “Little criminals? If we’d kept it up we’d have given you a run for your money out here. Forget being the brother of the Pathfinder, _I’d_ be the King of Kadara.”

“You’re smug for an out of practice third rate con artist,” Reyes smirked.

“Third rate con artist?” Scott feigned offence, “I’ll have you know, Mr Vidal, that I was the most charming pickpocket to work the Wards. I’d rob you blind, and you’d still want to buy me a drink afterwards.”

“That so?” he quirked an eyebrow, “I’d like to see that. Though how about we skip the robbing and go straight for the drink?”

Scott glanced at him, and realised that he was being flirted with, “Oh… I… I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

Reyes gave a nod, “You’re not interested in men?”

Scott smiled, “I’m interested in men, and you are handsome in that rugged smuggler kind of way but I’m taken. Got myself a good one. Not even your smooth accent could convince me to wander from him.”

“The redheaded engineer with the nice ass?” Reyes shot him a knowing look.

Scott’s smile grew, “Yep, that’s him. Love of my life.”

The smuggler laughed softly, “It’s good that you two have each other. Love’s a hard thing to come by these days.”

“So now that you’ve struck out with both Ryder twins, you got any backups?” Scott smirked.

Reyes chuckled, “Just have to see what comes my way.”

“I’m not normally the best matchmaker but I’ve got a passel of Italian cousins still in cryo if you’ve got a real interest in Ryders.” Scott hauled himself to his feet, “C’mon, breakfast should be nearly ready.”

Reyes followed after him, not entirely sure if Scott was joking about the cousins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (He wasn't joking about the cousins)


End file.
